


Heroes Often Fail

by little_murmaider



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Breakupklok Epilogue, M/M, sad make outs, tumblr prompt fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-19 05:58:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11891481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_murmaider/pseuds/little_murmaider
Summary: The night before Roy Cornickelson's funeral, Toki and Skwisgaar try to figure out what comes next, and find there are no easy answers.





	Heroes Often Fail

**Author's Note:**

> A tumblr request, filling the prompt "Desperate Kiss." Takes place in the same universe as [Self Control](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10174142); the dream Skwisgaar mentions here is further explained there. Hooray!

It wasn't uncommon for Skwisgaar to lapse into silence during time of stress. Most times it was a means of self-preservation, a way to disengage from the petty problem-of-the-week. When Nathan and Pickles started sniping at each other, he’d assured Toki they would patch things up soon. He was wrong, of course. Animosity simmered beneath every interaction. Weeks passed. Skwisgaar stopped speaking up at band meetings, contributed little to mealtime discussions. The quietness bled into their private moments, the energy crackling with apprehension. Skwisgaar abandoned his guitar and, absent his nervous tinkering, Toki filled the air with mindless chatter. Even as Skwisgaar clung to him like an affection-starved barnacle, Toki felt something mounting. Not the bitterness that poisoned Nathan and Pickles’s relationship, but nonetheless thorny and inscrutable.    
  
After Dethklok’s final show in Reykjavik went tits-up, things changed. Skwisgaar became spacey and isolated. He seemed burdened by his silence, as though he were forbidden from speaking until he solved a problem well beyond his cognitive paygrade. The mood on the Dethsub sucked. Everyone got weird and distant, Charles wouldn’t shut up about destiny, and Toki wanted nothing more than to resurface and get this breakup _over_ with already. But Charles insisted on laying low until Roy’s funeral. The sub drifted through the murky depths, windows blackened by sea, hallways flooded with artificial life. Toki lost track of the days. He occupied his time wandering the craft aimlessly, running his fingers along the cool steel walls.     
  
On their last night in the sub, he stumbled across Skwisgaar, holed up in a lounge on the starboard side. The room wasn’t lacking in seating, yet Skwisgaar was planted on the ground. He sat before a bulbous, terrarium-like window, the space large enough to house the whole band with room to spare. The sub had begun its ascent; errant sunbeams brightened the ocean into a calming cerulean. White fur blanket draped over his shoulders, Skwisgaar looked like a somber king, contemplating the ruins of his fallen city.  
  
If Skwisgaar noticed Toki had dropped beside him, it went unacknowledged. But from the corner of his eye, Toki could see Skwisgaar’s gaze had shifted from the window to him.  
  
“Takes a picture, it’ll lasts longers.” He tried to sound playful, but was unnerved by Skwisgaar’s glassy, vacant stare.  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“You’re lookings at mes funny.”  
  
Skwisgaar blinked once, then three more times, each harder than the last.  
  
“Was I’s?”  
  
Skwisgaar shook his head, then pinched the bridge of his nose in his thumb and middle finger. Outside the window, the shadow of a massive beast appeared briefly interested in the sub, but swam off, indifferent.  
  
“You okays?” Toki asked.  
  
“Ja. It’s not’ings. I.” He sighed. “I hads dis dreams de other nights. It’s still fuckings me ups, I guess.”  
  
“Dreams about what?”  
  
“Yous.”  
  
Toki’s chest tightened. Skwisgaar ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.  
  
“Not reallys. Maybe. I don’t knows. Who care. Just a dildos dream. Dey don’t means not’ings anyways.”  
  
He cast his gaze back out to the ocean, and Toki did the same. They sat there, wordless, listening to the comforting hum of the engines.  
  
“Hey.” Skwisgaar said after a while. “Where you t’inks you bes, if you didn’ts join Dethklok?”  
  
“Don’t knows.” He paused. “Dead, probablies.”  
  
“Ams serious.”  
  
“So ams I.” His answer sunk heavily on them both. He pivoted. “What abouts yous?”  
  
“Huegghhhhh, still skippings arounds to different bands, I t’ink. Dat was all I knows before Dethklok. Gots to keeps you’s heads on a swivel for de next opp-pour-toon-nee-tees.” He bit his lip. “I was gettingks pretty burnt outs befores Dethklok, though. It starts to eats at you, not having a band dat sticks. Dethklok was de first bands I beens in dat felts like a real fit.”  
  
“How you join Dethklok, anyways?”  
  
Skwisgaar smirked, a glimmer of haughtiness in his expression. Toki never felt so grateful to see his smugness surface.  
  
“Nathan recruits me. He tells me laters he, ha ha, scoutsed mes? He goes to a bunch of mine shows, to makes sure I gots de stuff, I guess? Comes up to me durings intermishgun of a Financially Raped show in Jacksonvilles. Tells me de band sucks but I’m greats, and I shoulds be ins a band whats matches mine skills.” He laughed. “And I agrees, so I lefts.”  
  
Toki laughed, too. “What, like, in de middles of the shows?”  
  
“Ja, didn’ts even finish the set. Theys was pretty pissed but, eh, fuck em. I knew I has to does it."  
  
“What you means?”  
  
“I gets, a feelings in mine guts? Feels like, I don’t knows, I was supposed to bes in dis bands, wit dese guys. It was like, fates, you knows?”  
  
“Ja,” Toki conceded. “I felts dat ways at mine audition.”  
  
“So dis ams de ends."  
  
“If yous worried about not palling around after all dis,” Toki said, “we can still does dat.”  
  
Skwisgaar scoffed.  
  
“I beens through enough of dese to knowns once de bands ams dead, dere amn’ts no mores palling arounds. Evens when you ends on good term. It am goodbyes, forevers.”  
  
“Dat’s only cause you ain’ts beens in a bands wif meeeeeee’s befores!” He knocked his shoulder into Skwisgaar’s. “You can’ts gets rids of me ifs you tried!”  
  
Skwisgaar didn't even feign amusement. He just seemed resigned.  
  
“I wants to believes dat, Toki,” he murmured. “I really, really does.”  
  
Reality shivved Toki. Had he been naive to think his bandmates would still want to spend time with him once they were no longer financially obligated to do so? He didn’t want to accept he was about to begin a life where Skwisgaar was not a constant. He couldn’t, wouldn’t let himself think that way. Nudging the blanket aside, he sidled up to Skwisgaar, the skin of their arms grazing.    
  
“I knows t’ings have beens... _difficults_ , sometime, wifs us. Buts I wouldn'ts change a t’ing.” He scrunched his nose. “Dat’s a lie. I woulds change a lots of t’ings. I don't knows why I says dat.”  
  
“Toki, what ams you--”  
  
“You ams so special to me,” Toki said, and Skwisgaar looked like he had the wind knocked out of him. “Evens when you was de biggest dick in de world. I nevers forgets dat you was de first person who saws mes and thoughts I was worf somet’ings. You saved my lifes, Skwisgaar.” He placed his hand on Skwisgaar’s thigh. “In more ways dan ones.”  
  
Toki never expected eloquence from Skwisgaar, especially when emotions were involved. In that moment, Skwisgaar wasn’t just at a loss for words. It was as though all means of communication melted right out of him. He laid his hand over Toki’s, squeezing so hard Toki heard his knuckle pop.  
  
“I...ams...” He cleared his throat, swallowed, went on. “...good, at a lots of t’ings. At most t’ings.”   
  
Toki rolled his eyes.  
  
“But dis...amn’ts ones of dem. Ands. I don’ts--Dis amn’ts--” His eyebrows cinched together. He rapped his fist on his thigh with urgency, as though doing so would punch out whatever he was searching for. “I can’ts. Makes de words. Dat you needs to hears.”  
  
Toki sucked back his disappointment. He was about to tell him it was fine, all of this was fine, everything was going to be fine, when Skwisgaar lunged into his most reliable coping mechanism: Throwing his body at the problem.  
  
His kissed him with ferocity, fingers clutching the back of Toki’s skull. They had kissed before, of course, but never like this. Like he was dying, like they were both dying, like Skwisgaar was trying to save Toki’s life again. From what, Toki didn't know.  
  
Toki pulled out first but Skwisgaar lingered, peppering the edges of his mouth with staccato kisses.  
  
“It’s nots enoughs,” he rasped over and over, kisses messy, breath ragged. “It’s nots enoughs. I’m sorries. It’s nots--”  
  
Toki put a hand on Skwisgaar’s chest, and he stilled.  
  
“I gets it, okays?” He tipped forward so their foreheads touched. “I gets it.”  
  
It was quiet again. Skwisgaar closed his eyes. His touch roamed down Toki’s neck, his arms, until both hands cradled the one over his heart.  
  
“I promised Magnus I woulds sits wif hims tomorrows.” An emotion rippled across Skwisgaar’s face, like a rat beneath a rug, and then vanished. “Buts afterwards, you and me’s coulds does somet’ings?”  
  
Skwisgaar hummed, low and non-committal.  
  
“We’s never gots to goes to de Splash-a-Rooni Waters Park, we coulds does dat? Or dere ams dis bar whats gots an ice rooms, and ifs you stays in deres longs enough you gets a prize? Or we cans goes to dat park you likes wif alls de dogs? Or we--”  
  
As Toki rambled, Skwisgaar brought his hand to his mouth and kissed his palm, on the freckle in the center of his lifeline. Later, chained down and entrenched in his own filth, Toki would stare at the mark and fight to remember that sensation; the gentle press of lips, the rush of feelings behind it.  
  
Toki brushed Skwisgaar’s cheekbone with the pad of his thumb and said, in his most convincing voice, “Everyt’ings ams goings to be fines.”  



End file.
